Bomb': Hillary's 'Hard Choices' off to sluggish start

Hillary Clinton's "Hard Choices" has had one of the most extravagant releases of any book in recent memory.

But the book's commercial success is not matching the pomp and circumstance surrounding the title's tour itself.

HiIlary Rodham Clinton, right, listens before signing a copy of her new book for a wheelchair-bound woman on Tuesday June 10, 2014, at Barnes and Noble bookstore in New York. Clinton said Tuesday that she and former President Bill Clinton "fully appreciate how hard life is for so many Americans," seeking to refine remarks she made about the pair being broke when they left the White House while on a high-profile media tour for a new book. (Image Source: AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

As reported in the Weekly Standard, amid initial sales substantially below expectation, a veteran publishing source has called the former Secretary of State's new book a "bomb:"

"According to this source, a Simon & Schuster insider, "They sold 60,000 hard covers first week and 24,000 ebooks." The publishing house was "hoping and praying for 150,000 print first week."

"The 60k represents a less than 10% sell thru based on what they shipped," says the source.

It's been reported that one million copies of Clinton's book were shipped weeks before the June 10 publication date. "They will be lucky to sell 150,000 total lifetime," the source writes in the email."

Barnes & Noble sold 24,000 hard copies of Hillary's book, the highest sales of any individual title for the chain.

Based on Amazon's ratings, Ms. Clinton's book rates at No. 5 of all books, No. 1 in United States History, No. 1 in Political Biographies and Memoirs and No. 1 in Women's Studies. In terms of Kindle sales, Hillary's book clocks in at No. 71. The overall reader review rating at Amazon is 2.3 stars out of 5.0, based on 644 reviews as of this writing.

Ed Morrissey of conservative blog HotAir was particularly hard on Hillary, writing:

"The real sales job wasn’t the book itself but Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate. The lack of enthusiasm for the book in its sales figures hurts the perception of Hillary, but nowhere nearly as badly as Hillary herself has damaged it over the past eight days. She has made gaffe after gaffe, underscored her lack of accomplishment at State, and provided no real answers on how she would govern. Indeed, her book and her testimony on the tour the past week has raised a lot more questions about her leadership and her honesty than it answered.

So the book sales may be a flop, but the bigger flop is Candidate Hillary. Even a boost in book sales wouldn’t fix that."